


we're all ones and zeros beneath our skin

by AlexiaBlackbriar13



Series: Olicity AU Series [16]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, CIA Agent Oliver Queen, Character Death, Close to smut but not really, Electrokinesis, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Evil Government Agencies, F/M, Falling In Love, Government Agencies, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Mentions of Illegal Human Experimentation, On the Run, On-the-run Technopath Felicity Smoak, Rejection, Superpowers, Technopathy, Telekinesis, The CIA is Very Evil in this, mentions of torture of children, pyrokinesis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 05:27:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15550638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexiaBlackbriar13/pseuds/AlexiaBlackbriar13
Summary: Oliver Queen is a top-level CIA agent, with a high affinity for weapons and strategy. He’s just been placed on Operation Overwatch, the most difficult mission of his entire life.Felicity Smoak is a Deviant, a woman with powers who can control tech and electricity. She’s also Number 1 on the CIA’s Most Wanted list and seemingly intent on attacking every government-run scientific facility in the country.She’s his next target. His job is to find her, capture her and bring her in. But as the truth of why exactly Felicity is doing what she’s doing comes to light, and Oliver and Felicity slowly begin to trust each other, everything is about to change.





	we're all ones and zeros beneath our skin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [felicityollies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/felicityollies/gifts).



> hi guys! so, this all started when i was trying to motivate (and basically bribe) the incredible bev ([@felicityollies](https://twitter.com/felicityollies)) to finish a chapter of checkmate a couple of days ago. she did, and sent me [this prompt](http://felicityollies.tumblr.com/post/172343496682/prompt-783). why she decided to send me an angst prompt when she fully well knows that i love breaking people's hearts and making them cry with my fics, i do not know. you take it up with her lol. bev also made the wonderful banner below so thank you bev!!!!!
> 
> i have been informed by the lovely, amazing sam ([@ghostfoxlovely](https://twitter.com/ghostfoxlovely), CheerUpLovely on ao3) that this fic is very fast-paced and intense and i advise you have a bottle of water and maybe some tissues nearby when you read it :) thank you for beta-ing the fic, sam, and thank you so much for your kind words of encouragement xxx
> 
> and also thank you to marian ([@bushlaboo](https://twitter.com/bushlaboo)) who has been acting as a sounding board over the last few days and actually came up with the title in the first place
> 
> i hope you all enjoy reading this little au. (as always, read the tags for trigger warnings) i'm really looking forward to your reactions!

* * *

“Agent Queen, thank you for coming. Here, sit down. This is your next target.”

Oliver inclines his head in a gesture of respect for Director Lance, taking the seat offered for him in front of his desk, making sure to keep his back straight and chin raised. It isn’t often the Director asks for one-on-one meetings with agents of his level, so whatever mission Oliver has been summoned for, and is now being briefed on, must be very important. He feels slightly out of place considering the Director is dressed in a full suit and he’s just wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and his leather jacket, but Lance doesn’t seem to care; CIA protocol dictates that agents of his level can wear civilian clothing around HQ when not on active missions.

Lance slips a photograph across the hardwood towards him, and Oliver takes it delicately. It’s a picture of a beautiful blonde woman, glasses framing crystal blue eyes. A simple surveillance footage shot, the quality isn’t particularly good, but her bright pink dress and heels are bursts of color within the dull background, which appears to be some sort of street, in New York judging by the street signs.

He stares at the photo almost blankly. As a CIA agent, he’s trained to obey orders, execute them, and not ask questions about his targets. This woman, whoever she is, is obviously dangerous or valuable if she’s within the CIA’s line of sight.

Oliver’s gaze flits up from the photograph to the Director and he asks in a flat tone, “Do you want me to rescue her, or kill her?”

Lance laughs in dark amusement. “Neither,” he answers. “We want you to track her down, capture her and bring her in.”

His brow furrows. Those aren’t the usual missions he’s placed on. Normally, agents of his skillset are utilized for elimination or extraction purposes only. “I don’t like to ask questions about my targets, Sir,” he says, “But for the purpose of trying to understand exactly why I’ve been picked for this mission, may I ask who this woman is, and why she is important enough for you to want her to be brought in?”

Lance appears pleased by his curiosity, which is strange, because the last time Oliver poked his head up too high and got a little too nosy, he was reprimanded. Fishing out more photos of the woman from a file he pulls out of his desk drawer, he hands them over to the agent for examination. “Her name is Felicity Smoak.”

“Felicity Smoak?” Oliver glances up in disbelief. “This woman is the CIA’s number one Most Wanted person in the United States?”

Every agent knows the top ten off the most wanted list by memory, it’s standard knowledge that every CIA employee has to know. Felicity Smoak has been at the very top of that list for two years now, although nobody has ever found out why. There have never been any pictures released of her, which is why Oliver is so shocked that the deadly, hardened criminal he believed Smoak to be is, in fact, the woman in the photo just given to him.

“Hard to believe, isn’t it? You wouldn’t look at that pretty face and think she’s a terrorist of the highest degree, confirmed to have attacked eleven government scientific facilities, and suspected of attacking four more.”

Oliver can’t help but feel confused. If this woman is so dangerous, then why do they want him to bring her in? “With all due respect, Sir… would it not just be more efficient to eliminate her out in the field, rather than bring her in to stand trial?”

“We can’t kill her,” Lance responds. He sounds irritated by this. “She has… followers.”

“You don’t want to make her into a martyr.”

“No.”

That explains why he can’t kill her, but does not explain why he’s been picked for this mission. And when he’s perplexed, he can’t stop himself from asking more questions. “Director… I apologize for my intrusiveness and enquiring, but why have I been selected for this operation?”

Nodding, the Director stands. “Come with me.”

Oliver hurries to stand and follow after the man. Trailing behind Lance as they head out of his office and into central CIA HQ, the agent crosses his arms over his chest nervously once he realizes they’re venturing deep into the compound, far deeper than he’s ever been allowed to go before. The corridors become darker and narrower, with less and less agents walking about them. Why Lance is bringing him here, he has no idea, but he’s not about to object, especially when the Director could have him out of a job with a snap of his fingers. Finally, they reach a door with the highest level of security that Oliver thinks he’s ever seen. Pushing forward, the Director places his hand in a biometric scanner, stares into a retinal one and then has his security clearance pass scanned as well. Raising an eyebrow at Oliver expectantly as he steps back, Lance motions him forwards.

The biometric and retinal scans go fine, but as soon as Oliver pressed his security pass against the door, it locks up, flashing red.

_AGENT OLIVER JONAS QUEEN_  
_CIA SPECIALISED FIELD AGENT_  
_WEAPONS EXPERT AND STRATEGIST_  
_LEVEL 8_  
_ENTRY DECLINED_

Lance jerks into action, reaching into his pocket and thrusting a new security pass into the agent’s hand. “Here, this is your new one. Might as well toss the old one, it’s useless down here.”

Dropping his Level 8 pass into the trash can next to the door, Oliver quickly scrutinizes his shiny new pass before scanning it. He’s silently stunned. He’s got a Level 10 clearance now. The only CIA employee with a Level 10 clearance that he knows of is the Director. This Felicity Smoak person and the mission he’s being placed on must be a seriously big deal - anxiety flickers through him as he realizes this is much bigger than anything he’s tackled before.

The door opens up to another corridor, which ends in a large chamber at the end, screens mounted on the stone walls and a conference table placed in the center. It’s similar to the briefing rooms that Oliver has been before, but the archways that lead off to another corridors and rooms suggest this is not a normal area. A familiar agent waits for them at the chamber’s entrance. Oliver immediately curls his lip, looking away from her. Amanda Waller was one of the agents who trained Oliver and is infamous within the CIA for being cruel and ruthless. She vanished just after he cleared his Level 3 status and he thought she’d been transferred overseas, to his delight. But no, apparently she’s been down here the entire time. Judging by Waller’s disgusted expression, she hates him as much as he does her.

“Agent Waller,” Lance greets her, shaking her hand.

“Director Lance,” Waller returns. “And Agent Queen. Finally joining us here at Level 10?”

Oliver doesn’t get to respond, because Lance snaps, “Don’t be rude, Waller. You goddamn know we need Queen on this and I would have pulled him in sooner if it hadn’t been for your incompetence.”

Waller shoots both of them heavy glares before striding off, apparently done with them both.

His voice softening, Lance says, “Take a seat, Queen. You probably want to be sitting down for this.”

That doesn’t sound at all good. Eyes darting about agitatedly, Oliver sinks into one of the chairs around a conference table, leaning back. The photograph of Smoak is returned to him, as well as her whole file this time. His heart lurches in excitement and he begins to flick through it, trying to not to let on how exhilarating he’s finding this whole thing, being selected to track down the CIA’s number one most wanted, even though he has no clue why.

“Felicity Smoak is not just your run-of-the-mill, average terrorist,” Lance explains. “She’s what we call a Deviant.”

“A Deviant?” he repeats.

“Ever heard of that before?”

“No,” he admits.

“I wouldn’t have expected to you. I would have been pissed off if you had. It’s a sort of nickname the CIA came up with,” Lance says, “For individuals with powers.”

Oliver freezes. Slowly, he closes the file and meets Lance’s eyes. He’s absolutely certain he looks as bewildered and astonished as a deer in a set of headlights. He can’t have just heard Lance correctly. Individuals with _powers?_ “I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand.”

“People with superpowers exist, Queen,” Lance sighs. “They have for a while now. We think the epidemic started around four years ago. You remember that huge satellite crash out in the Mojave? Blew out power throughout that whole Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Phoenix triangle?”

“Yes.”

“There was no satellite crash. It was a cover-up. An object of extraterrestrial origin that crashed to Earth. A shockwave of dark matter was sent out from the object upon collision and that dark matter _affected_ certain people within that triangle.”

“You’re telling me aliens crashed to Earth and gave people superpowers.” His throat is dry. He feels like he can’t breathe properly. This cannot be real. This has to be some sort of joke. But seeing the serious expression on Lance’s face, Oliver knows that it isn’t. “How many people roughly were affected?”

“We’re not entirely sure,” the Director confesses. “Around two hundred, we estimated. Could be more, could be less. But if I had to bet, I’d say more. A lot more.”

“ _Shit._ ”

“We began hearing about the Deviants about three months after the event. All of them were reported with having enhanced strength, stamina and senses. As well as specialized abilities. We had people able to control fire, move things with their minds - fuck, I think we had someone who was able to fly at some point.”

This is a lot to take in. He wants to sit in complete shock and try and get over these overwhelming facts, but Oliver forces himself to focus on his target and the mission. “Felicity Smoak.” The agent stabs his finger down onto her file. “She’s one of them. That’s why you’re telling me about this.”

“Yes, she’s a Deviant,” Lance nods.

“What’s her specialized ability?”

“As far as we can tell, technopathy and electrokinesis.” When Oliver blinks at him, Lance rolls his eyes and translates, “She can make technology do what she wants and can control electricity and anything powered by it.”

“And she’s been attacking government scientific facilities?”

The Director nods, reaching over to turn to a particular page in her file, showing Oliver footage of Smoak and a group of people behind her, approaching one of their facilities. The agent swallows in horror when he sees the lightning surrounding Smoak and the intense, electric blue glow of her eyes. “She’s become known as Overwatch. She likes to think she’s a superhero, but she’s anything but. If anything, she’s a villain, one of the most lethal that mankind has ever faced. She commands a small army of other Deviants. Now you see why she’s been labeled as one of the most dangerous people known to us.”

“Fuck,” Oliver mutters, imagining what destruction and wreckage the woman could cause with powers like that. She could shut down the entire country within seconds if she wanted to, take control of the nuclear warheads, start a war. But now, he can understand why Lance wants her brought in. Smoak could be an incredibly powerful and valuable asset if she could be turned, or controlled. “So you want me to track her down and capture her.”

“Without harming her, if possible,” Lance nods.

“And you think I’m qualified to do that?” he asks, incredulous. “This woman has powers. I’m just a CIA agent who is relatively decent with weapons. And you’re telling me that I’m not even _allowed_ to use those weapons because you want her brought in unhurt.” His voice grows louder as he speaks, his tone becoming more and more frustrated.

In the face of Oliver’s anger and irritation, Lance simply stares calmly back. “You brought in a Deviant for us before,” he tells him.

That’s news to him. “When? Who?”

“Last year. Slade Wilson.”

Oliver shakes his head. “Slade Wilson was just a mercenary with an alarming sword obsession. He didn’t have powers.”

“He did, you just didn’t know it. We didn’t either, until we had him in custody and he agreed to give us information about Deviants in exchange for a reduced prison sentence. He had the power to travel forwards in time by a couple of seconds. The entire time you were fighting him, he had the advantage of knowing exactly what moves you were going to use and how you were going to attack him. But you still beat him.”

“Having the ability to travel forwards in time a few seconds is _not_ being able to throw lightning at somebody or make an electrical device explode like a bomb in somebody’s pocket.”

The Director doesn’t react to his anger. “Are you refusing the mission?” he asks.

“Am I allowed to?”

“Of course. As with any mission, you are permitted to decline it if you so wish. If you wish to be removed from this operation, you’ll most likely be placed on another Level 10 project involving classifying Deviants, although that will not demand any fieldwork which, if you don’t mind me saying, Queen, I think is rather your preference.”

He debates it for a moment. This mission will be dangerous and he could very well get killed by these criminal Deviants. Taking a desk job classifying Deviants would be the easier and much safer option here. But… Felicity Smoak is too intriguing and fascinating a target to pass up on. His entire career he’s wanted to get to a top-level security clearance. Throwing away this mission would be throwing away everything he’s ever worked for since he started his CIA training.

“What’s in it for me?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow.

Lance doesn’t look annoyed like he thought he would. Instead, he actually appears amused. “You’ll retain your Level 10 clearance once the mission is completed. Your salary will increase to Tier B -”

“Tier A,” Oliver counters.

The Director _laughs_. “Okay, Tier A. And you’ll be given an extra twelve months of paid leave, to be used for vacation or otherwise.”

“What about a team? I’ll need tech and field assistance. Not to mention funds.”

“We were planning on bringing in your Level 7 field team of Tommy Merlyn and Adrian Chase, and Curtis Holt, who is already a Level 10 and works in tech, will be assigned to you. The entire Level 10 budget will be available to you during the mission.”

It’s far more than Oliver ever thought would be offered for him. Sticking his hand out over the tabletop, he agrees, “Deal.”

There’s a lot of paperwork and NDAs to sign and it takes about half an hour to complete everything. The entire time Oliver sits on at the table, forms and files being placed in front of him to read and write his signature on, he’s distracted by that picture of Felicity Smoak, Overwatch, which has been slid to the side, but he can see in the corner of his eye.

 _I’m coming for you, Smoak,_ he thinks. _You better be ready for a fucking fight._

* * *

Oliver and his team spend the first week assigned to Operation Overwatch in the Level 10 headquarters, devising strategies and plans of how to possibly capture Smoak and even some of her Deviant associates, without endangering civilians or themselves too much. Having Tommy and Adrian working with him, however, ensures the week isn’t boring. Tommy, who has been Oliver’s best friend since he was seven and is ever the more cautious and clever one, prefers ideas that involve drawing Smoak away from the facilities she attacks into areas with less technology and electricity she can utilize. Adrian, on the other hand, who Oliver knows from past experience enjoys violence, votes for full-on assaulting them, killing as many Deviants as they can before finally taking in Smoak and suppressing her powers somehow.

None of the plans they come up with are particularly good, which worries Oliver. Smoak is going to be a tricky one to catch, he can sense it. This is not going to be a very pleasant mission.

Their assigned tech, Curtis, sets up search algorithms and scans the internet for any potential intel on Smoak and her group of followers while the field team plan. He informs Oliver that he’s figured out a way of conceivably tracking the Deviants, Smoak specifically. Apparently, there’s always a significant drain in electrical supply to the inhabited areas surrounding the facility Smoak is going to target a day or two before they attack. Curtis reckons it may be because Smoak steals some of the power to store within her, to energize herself for the attacks. He makes more progress within a week than the prior analysts working the Overwatch op did in years. It fills Oliver with the hope that maybe they have a chance of finding her at least.

Two days after Curtis sets the program to track the electrical supply drains, they get a hit. Fort Wayne, Indiana. A quick check with the CIA database and they confirm there is a government-run scientific facility there, a small one, but still obviously significant enough to get on Smoak’s radar.

By the time they scramble a private high-speed jet to get them there, however, the destruction has already been wrought. The facility has been torn apart by multiple explosions. Raging fire that has overtaken the building releases thick black smoke into the sky, darkening the horizon and blocking out the sun. The emergency services are already on the scene, the FBI too by the look of things, so Tommy and Adrian immediately rush off to assist with the survivors and tell the FBI they’ll be taking over.

Oliver catches his first real-life glimpse of Smoak that day.

He circles the burning building, trying to figure out where exactly the explosives were detonated to have caused so much damage. He sees an open doorway, the door fully blown off its hinges, but the space inside doesn’t appear fire damaged, so he covers his mouth with his sleeve and heads inside. It’s a maintenance corridor, filled with smoke with only dim emergency lighting.

As he turns around, thinking it’s empty, he sees a figure in the smoke. He stands stock still as it clears slightly and reveals a blonde woman in a purple and black suit, her hood down. What identifies her as Smoak, however, is the small, crackling ball of lightning she holds in her hands to guide them through the dark fog. He watches with wide eyes and his breath frozen in his chest as she helps another person, a man dressed in black, stand after a coughing fit, having inhaled too much smoke.

She straightens and stares directly back at him.

Her blue eyes are piercing, and the defiance in them chills Oliver to the bone.

All of a sudden, a laser grid springs to life, separating them. Smoak’s doing, no doubt. But he doesn’t reach for his gun. Somehow, the agent knows that his weapon will be useless in this situation, so there’s no point in trying to shoot at them. Watching as she and the man re-enter the smoke, he lets them go. He doesn’t miss the strange expression on Smoak’s face as she glances back at him, though, before she disappears into the fog.

When they get back to HQ, Oliver decides to keep his encounter with the Deviant to himself, and listens to Tommy, Adrian and Curtis’ reports. Smoak and her followers did not cause the explosions. The facility had secret bombs rigged up in places of structural support, that the head scientist at the facility set to go off when she realized they were under attack. The building self-destructed. Nineteen people were killed and triple that number were badly injured. For some reason, the survivors refused to speak about the Deviants attacking, although Adrian suggests that’s maybe due to the shock they were in.

It does cause Oliver to wonder, though. Why are Smoak and her Deviants attacking these government scientific facilities? Do they want something from them? It seems strange that with all their powers and strength, they’re choosing scientific facilities to attack rather than larger, more important and public buildings, such as the Pentagon, or the White House.

He brings this up, but Tommy just laughs and replies, “They’re all crazy, man. Government-hating nutjobs. Don’t think too much into it.”

Oliver laughs back and agrees, but can’t help but feel like he’s missing a vital piece of information here. The last piece of the puzzle they have yet to complete. Understanding Smoak’s motives might be the key to capturing her.

So why the scientific facilities?

* * *

They arrive in the middle of a war zone the next time Curtis’ program gets a ping a week later. The facility’s main laboratory building is located right in the heart of San Francisco’s financial district. The police evacuated most of the civilians in the area before the real battle began, and they’re currently caught in a firefight with a male Deviant who by the look of things, can control and manipulate metal. Smoak is nowhere to be seen.

“Split up!” Oliver shouts over the gunfire. “Take down as many Deviants as you can. If you see or find Smoak at all, you call it out over comms.”

Adrian and Tommy rush off. Oliver begins navigating all the overturned and ruined cars and huge pieces of rubble from damaged buildings, trying to pick his way through the wreckage to find a safe route to the labs. His ears ring due to the continuous flurries of bullets and sudden loud bangs and crashes, and his eyes sting due to all of the smoke and gases pouring out of broken pipes and flaming vehicles.

Without any warning whatsoever, a car flies out of nowhere, slamming him up against the wall. A yell of pain escapes his throat before he can stop it and the startling onslaught of agony, spreading through his left side which the car has trapped against the brickwork, sends a wave of dizziness rolling over him. Adrian, Curtis, and Tommy don’t respond on comms, their units probably fried by Smoak’s insane electrical powers. Oliver pants, on the verge of hyperventilating as he realizes he definitely cannot move. He’s trapped until somebody finds him and rescues him.

He must blackout for a bit, because when he comes too again, the pain has dulled to an intense throbbing and although his head is pounding, he doesn’t feel as if he’s seconds away from being sick anymore. Raising his head from where it’s been resting against the car that’s crushing him’s framework, he’s too dazed and exhausted to startle when upon glancing up, he’s instantly greeted by those steely cobalt eyes from last week.

Fear lances through him, almost as severe as the pain. “If you’re going to kill me,” he says tiredly. “Just do it.”

“Why would I kill you?” Smoak says, tilting her head sideways. Her voice is much softer than he thought it would be, lighter. Her tone is teasing rather than threatening.

“You’re a terrorist,” he replies, “Who’s attacked dozens of government facilities and killed hundreds of people.”

“I’ve never killed anybody,” she responds, suddenly sharp. The fierceness of her eyes entrances Oliver. He can’t bring himself to look away. “Not on purpose, anyway.” She steps back, giving the agent a view of that purple and black suit again. “You’re in a bit of a bind, aren’t you? Did you get in Dig’s way?”

“Dig?” he repeats, eyes slipping shut.

She pats his cheek, trying to keep him awake. Oliver flinches away from her on instinct, and an unusual pang of regret hits him when Smoak frowns, as if hurt by him being scared of her. “Diggle. He’s telekinetic. Probably threw the car at you when he saw you sneaking around. Pesky CIA agents, always snooping.” Sighing, she glances around, as if checking nobody is watching before whispering, “Come on, let’s get you free. Wouldn’t want you to stay trapped here for another couple hours before your secret agent buddies come and find you.”

“You’re… going to help me?” he asks, confused.

“Well, of course, I’m not a monster,” she huffs, beginning to edge her way around to the other side of the car, finding a good handle.

Not a monster? She’s a terrorist. She has powers and uses them to wreck havoc across the country. Whether she thinks it or not, she is most definitely a monster in the eyes of the CIA. That doesn’t necessarily mean she’s a monster in Oliver’s eyes, though. Still utterly bewildered by her willingness to help him, he questions, “But… why?”

Smoak eyes him like he’s stupid as she yanks on the car, her enhanced strength allowing her to pull it away from the wall easily. His left side freed, Oliver sags in relief as the pain fades, reducing to a faint ache. Bolting forwards to catch him, the Deviant helps him slide down so he’s sitting on the ground.

“You had the opportunity to shoot my friend and I last week,” she tells him. “But you didn’t. You didn’t even draw your weapon. You let me go then… I’m letting you go now. Um… you might not want to mention this to your buddies. I don’t want them thinking I was soft on you. This is just returning the favor.”

“Cool,” Oliver mutters, sinking his head back against the brick with a groan. “Although if you want to return the favor, you could stop attacking all the scientific facilities. Just a thought.”

Her gaze turns cold, those eyes ferocious once again. “Not going to happen, sorry.”

“Why are you even attacking them?” he questions, shaking his head. “I just… don’t get it. They’re just labs and research stations. What could you possibly want from them?”

Looming above him, she laughs humorlessly. Those ice chips for eyes bore into him, making Oliver want to cringe backward. “You’re kidding, right?” After a beat of silence, in which the agent continues to stare bemusedly at her, her hardened expression falls into one of anger and horror. “Oh my god, you actually don’t know. They have you hunting us down, they tell you we’re just mindlessly attacking these facilities and that we’re the criminals, we’re the bad guys and you… you have no idea.”

“What are you talking about?” he pleads. She clenches her fists and Oliver’s heart skips a beat in fear as electricity sparks from her fingertips, her fury overtaking her. “I’m - I’m sorry. I’m not trying to anger you. I honestly have no clue what you mean.”

With that, she exhales, relaxing slightly. She’s still enraged, her hands trembling and shoulders tensed, but she doesn’t look as if she’s about to attack him any second.

“I didn’t even know Deviants existed until two weeks ago,” he tells her. “I feel so out of my depth here. I want to understand everything that’s going on. I want to understand why you’re doing this. Please.”

Smoak turns away from him, striding off. “Do your research. Find out what those facilities are for, what they’re doing in them. Then you can cast your judgment. I wonder if the truth will change your mind about which side you should be on.”

Oliver wants to call out for her to stop so he can ask more questions, because she’s barely answered the ones he’s already posed, but he knows that she’ll just keep walking. Instead, he shouts, “If I want to talk, how do I contact you?”

“You don’t,” Smoak calls back. “Your mission is to capture me, why would I give you the means to find me when I don’t want to be found?” Pausing, her silhouette just barely visible through the mist and fog that has fallen around the destroyed street, she says, “What’s your name?”

“Oliver Queen,” he responds.

“I’ll see you again soon, Oliver Queen.”

Then she disappears, as easily and swiftly as a ghost would, into the night.

* * *

After Tommy and Adrian find him, he’s been patched up and they’ve returned to HQ, Oliver asks Curtis for files on all of the facilities that Smoak and her cohort have attacked so far. They all require a Level 10 access, which isn’t a problem for him anymore.

What Oliver finds absolutely infuriates him.

He’s not just angry. He is _livid_. He feels deceived and taken advantage of.

He’s actually shaking as he storms up to Director Lance’s office, shoving past other agents who try to stop him.

“Explain this,” he demands, shoving the files down onto Lance’s desk.

The Director, momentarily stunned by his sudden barging into his office, peers down at the files. He must realize what this is about because he answers stiffly, “There’s nothing to explain.”

“You are torturing and experimenting on _children_. Kids, who you kidnapped from group homes and the foster care system.”

Just thinking about those pictures he saw in the files of children being tied down and dissected, _vivisected_ , has him nearly throwing up. The scientists and doctors in the facilities that Smoak is attacking are treating kids like lab rats, dehumanizing them by locking them in cages while they wait their turn to die on an operating table.

“They’re Deviants. They present a danger to our country’s population and therefore, legally, we are allowed to detain them.”

“Don’t throw that danger and legal bullshit at me!” Oliver shouts. “They’re kids! How could they possibly be dangerous?”

“We have to understand how these Deviants function. How their powers work, what makes them tick,” Lance snarls, lurching to his feet.

Oliver forces himself to calm down. He can’t argue with Lance. He can’t protest against these Deviant operations the CIA has running, otherwise they’ll pull him off them or fire him, and then he’ll be completely in the dark. If he wants a chance to help the Deviants, aid them in their fight for freedom… there’s only one thing he can do.

Bracing himself, he manages to grit out, “Alright. That… that makes more sense.”

Lance squints at him suspiciously. “You understand why we have to do this?”

No, he fucking doesn’t, but he can’t let the Director know that. “Yeah. That… in order to utilize their powers, we have to know how the Deviants control them first.”

“Good,” Lance replies stiffly. “Then we don’t have a problem here, do we?”

“No,” Oliver says. “We don’t. I apologize for bursting into your office like that.”

The Director nods in acceptance of his apology before nodding pointedly towards the door, silently ordering him to get out. Oliver collects the files in his arms, seething quietly, and leaves.

He keeps the file with the most horrifying evidence in it and stashes it under his bed in his apartment, while returning the rest of them. Why he keeps it, he isn’t sure. Maybe as a reminder that the people he works for aren’t as good as they say they are… and that Smoak and her allies aren’t as villainous as he’s been told. All this time, all these years, all Smoak’s been trying to do… is save kids. Children like her who are being treated as less than human, less than deserving of life. Oliver shudders just thinking about how he’s been working for an agency that hurts and torments kids in the name of science.

Lying awake in bed that night, Oliver makes his decision. His only orders are to bring Smoak into custody, unharmed. As long as he continues acting as if that’s his aim, he can do whatever the fuck he wants.

He may be a CIA agent, but he’s also a decent human being.

Which is why he’s going to help Smoak and her Deviant friends.

* * *

“I’m sorry,” Oliver says, shaking his head. He has tears in his eyes. He can’t help it. He began tearing up the moment he noticed Smoak glaring at him fiercely from across the street.

They tracked the Deviants to Seattle, Washington, and landed the plane just as they attacked the scientific facility at the edge of the city, down by the waterfront. Once again, the entire place has basically been demolished, lumps of concrete having smashed into the asphalt after falling from buildings above, vehicles aflame. The police try to fight against Smoak’s small army of Deviants, but the combined forces of her metal-manipulator and telekinetic have them scurrying for cover. Tommy and Adrian are off fighting a hydrokinetic somewhere, leaving Oliver and Smoak facing off in a more isolated section of the battlefield.

“I’m so sorry,” he repeats, his voice choked. He pulls the file about the children out from in his jacket, holding it towards her with a shaking hand. “I… I didn’t…”

Her wildfire eyes soften under her hood. She walks forwards until she’s only a couple of meters away from him and takes the file. “Does it change anything?” she asks quietly. “Knowing?”

“It changes _everything_ ,” he replies.

“The children are why we do this,” she says, gesturing to the chaos encircling them. “They’re why we fight.”

“I understand that,” he nods, and then taking a deep breath, he meets her eyes and informs her firmly, “They’re why I want to fight too.”

Yelling and the sound of gunfire from nearby causes both of them to whip around, looking about uneasily. Oliver’s gaze flits back to Smoak, lingering on her back as he resists the urge to reach out and push her hood down so he can see her face properly.

“I have to go,” she tells him. “You probably should too. Your agent buddies will be looking for you.” She slaps a cell phone into his hand. It’s a cheap and simple smartphone, but at least it’s not a Nokia. “There’s one number programmed into it. If you want to get in contact with me, you text. Phone calls are SOS emergency only. I’ll always text back to acknowledge, so if I don’t, assume your message hasn’t got through.”

He’s shocked by her willingness to accept his help in her mission. “I’m still working for the CIA,” he says. “I’m still running the team trying to take you down.”

“I know,” she responds. “But if you say you want to fight with us, _for_ us, then that’s good enough for me.”

“Does that mean you trust me?”

Smoak gives him a sad smile. “Not at all. Sorry.”

“That’s okay. I don’t trust you yet either.”

She raises an eyebrow. “‘Yet’?”

He doesn’t get a chance to respond. A car thirty meters down from them explodes, and both of them have to duck to avoid some flying pieces of shrapnel. Oliver sees Tommy and Adrian in the distance, shooting at the telekinetic, who is hurling giant boulders of concrete at them with his mind.

Smoak wheels around so fast she’s almost a blur, and then lightning is flickering at her fingertips and she’s gone.

* * *

He’s first able to offer the Deviants some sort of assistance nine days after Smoak gives him the cell phone.

_16:32 SENT: are you in denver_

_16:56 RECEIVED: why?_

_17:03 SENT: electrical drain there. heading out with the team now. are you in denver_

_17:09 RECEIVED: not anymore. thanks_

Oliver smiles down at the cell phone.

It was something small. But he still might have helped.

“Who you texting, Queen?” Chase jeers from where he’s collecting his weapons, checking their magazines and loading up on ammo as they prepare to head out to the jet waiting for them. “Your girlfriend?”

He doesn’t rise to the bait, and instead types out a response.

_17:14 SENT: you’re welcome._

* * *

Five days after that, he texts Smoak that they’re following a lead in Salt Lake City, but doesn’t get a reply. It fills him with dread that maybe he didn’t text her in time, maybe she and her allies are attacking the facility right now with no idea that the CIA is chasing closely after them. When they get to the facility in Salt Lake, however, everything is quiet. The Deviants haven’t made their move yet. Tommy and Adrian are ecstatic, thinking that they might have the perfect opportunity to get the drop on Smoak. Oliver, on the other hand, is worried.

They rent out a nice hotel room with two double beds and a sofa bed, and sit at the tiny table trying to make a plan.

“We should stake out the area,” Tommy suggests, examining the schematics that show the buildings constructed around the facility. “Smoak seems like the sort of criminal who’s more comfortable moving in darkness, they might try and launch an assault tonight.”

“All their other attacks have been during the day,” Adrian argues. “A stakeout would be pointless. Besides, we’ve barely had a night’s break since this whole mission started and the hotel has a sweet ass bar downstairs.”

Curtis pipes up from Tommy’s cell, which they have switched to speaker-phone, “You guys are gonna go drinking without me? No fair.”

“You’re a nerd, Holt, you hate drinking,” Adrian says rudely and then he hangs up on him. “What do you say, Merlyn?”

Tommy sighs but shrugs his shoulders, “What the hell, man. Might as well.”

“Queen?”

“Um. I might… sit this one out.” He rolls his eyes when both Adrian and Tommy groan. “Come on, guys. One of us needs to actually do some work, that’s what we’re here for. I’ll go and stake out the facility, you guys go and enjoy a drink,” he pulls out a twenty dollar bill and waves it in front of them, “On me, okay?”

Adrian snatches the money and vacates the room without so much of a goodbye. Tommy claps Oliver on the shoulder and wishes him good luck. Sighing, Oliver gathers up some surveillance equipment, yanks on his leather jacket and heads over to the facility. With his CIA identity pass around his neck, it’s pretty easy to convince the owner of the building across the street from the facility to let him hang out on the roof all night, so once he’s up there, he settles down with a pair of binoculars in his hands, ready for a boring night’s stakeout.

It becomes much less boring when about three hours in, he catches sight of a suspicious group approaching the back of the facility building. Stifling his yawn as he sits up hurriedly, he spies through the binoculars at the peculiar group, his eyes widening as he glimpses a purple and black suit with a flash of blonde. He comes very close to falling flat on his face in his haste to run to the elevator and then around to the back of the facility.

As he turns the corner at a sprint, he screeches to a halt so quickly that he slides to the ground, covering his head as a ball of fire flies towards him.

“NO, WAIT!” he hears Smoak shout.

Considering he’s not burnt to a crisp, Oliver reckons it’s safe to peek up. An angry brunette woman glowers down at him, but she’s quickly shoved aside and replaced with Smoak, who looks concerned as she helps him to his feet.

“Sorry about that,” she says. “Dinah can be a bit fire-happy sometimes.”

“He’s lucky I didn’t barbeque him,” Dinah hisses, backing away.

“What are you doing here?” Smoak asks him, ignoring her friend. “We just got here. You can’t tell me you followed an electrical drain because I haven’t done anything.”

“You were caught on CCTV going into some fast food joint called Big Belly Burger in Logan,” he tells her. “The facility here is the only one anywhere near that town.”

“Dammit, I told you stopping for milkshakes was a stupid move, Dig,” Smoak says, shooting a glare back at a large, dark-skinned man, who Oliver recognizes as the telekinetic of their team.

“How was I meant to know they’d be checking CCTV?”

“Er, they’re the CIA?” Dinah rolls her eyes at him. “They have access to every camera in the country.”

“Yeah, but how’d they know there was a camera at Big Belly Burger in Logan they needed to check,” Diggle fires back.

“We have facial recognition software capable of scanning every single accessible camera in the country simultaneously keyed to a couple of the people who frequently turn up at fights with you,” Oliver says.

Smoak goes quiet, seemingly disturbed by this information. Dinah, Diggle and the other guy, the metal-manipular who hasn’t been identified yet, mutter that they’re going to go and check that ‘the secret agent guy’ hasn’t brought any backup. Within ten seconds or so, Oliver is left alone with the technopath, who gazes at him with those mesmerizing cobalt eyes of hers.

“I texted you not to come but you didn’t reply,” Oliver says, his voice small.

“Phone ran out of charge,” she replies.

“You need to leave. Tommy and Adrian… my other two guys, they’re planning on getting the jump on you tomorrow. I offered to stake out the facility tonight because… I don’t know, I just had a feeling.”

“Thank you for the warning, Queen.”

“Oliver,” he corrects her.

Her lips tick up in a hesitant but genuine smile. “Then you can call me Felicity.”

 _Felicity._ Whoever would have thought that Oliver would get permission from the target he’s supposed to capture to call her by her first name? “Your friends are… nice,” he offers lamely.

“They hate you,” Felicity laughs. “They think you’re trying to trick me into trusting you so you can kidnap me. You’re not trying to do that, are you? I’d hate to have to electrocute you.”

“If I was trying to do that, I would _let_ you electrocute me,” he says. Remembering, he pulls a small, crinkled note out of the pocket of his leather jacket, handing it over to her. “It’s a list of all the scientific facilities that have Deviant kids being held in them. I don’t know if you have a resource like that or not, considering some of the facilities you’ve hit before haven’t had any kids in them. I circled the ones I think are your best bets for getting away unchallenged, our tech guy doesn’t think you’ll target them until you’ve attacked the first two I’ve written on there.”

Felicity stares down at the note silently. “You could get arrested doing this for us, Oliver,” she murmurs. “You could get killed.”

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” he says steadily.

She lifts her gaze to meet his and swallows when he sees she looks surprised and even a little impressed.

“I would hug you if I wasn’t terrified you’d try to shoot or taser me,” she answers.

“I forgot my gun up on the rooftop I was staking the facility out on when I realized you were down here,” he admits.

It makes her chuckle, and it’s a joyous, carefree sound, one Oliver hopes he gets the chance to hear again.

“I should go,” he says eventually. “Get back… to that rooftop.”

“Right.” It’s hard not to notice the wistful look Felicity casts towards the facility, the sadness in her gaze as she realizes she too has to leave, which means leaving the Deviant kids trapped in the building behind.

“You know, if you waited maybe a week, just hung out at the edge of the city… you’d be able to rescue the kids in there pretty much uncontested,” he tells her, motioning to the door with his thumb. “I could even text you once my team and I are on the plane so there’s an absolute guarantee we wouldn’t turn up to try and stop you.”

That piques her interest. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks.”

The agent returns to the rooftop with a spring in his step and a lightened heart.

* * *

Oliver Queen determines the next day that he is completely and utterly screwed.

Firstly, because he shouldn’t be having weird dreams about Felicity Smoak. They’d just been sitting in some run down diner somewhere, drinking coffee and chatting as Felicity swirled a little bolt of electricity between her fingers. There’d been so much smiling and laughing and hand brushing.

Secondly, because he startled awake from the weird dream about Felicity Smoak with a hard-on that was very, _very_ difficult to ignore. Which is fine. Guys usually get morning wood, it’s not something to get antsy over.

Thirdly… because he’s about eighty percent sure it was a hard-on caused by the weird dream about Felicity.

Which to him, is a very clear indication and a rather huge wake-up call that he likes her.

 _Likes_ likes her.

He’s attracted to the woman he’s on a mission to capture.

Yeah, he’s screwed.

* * *

Oliver takes a bullet meant for Felicity, and that’s when he realizes he isn’t just attracted to her, he’s an actual lovesick bastard.

He can’t remember exactly what happened. They tracked Felicity and her gang to Portland, Oregon and caught them near the end of their attack on the scientific workshop there. For whatever reason, Felicity was alone. Oliver remembers the feeling of panic sweeping over him as Adrian cornered Felicity in an alleyway, the horror as he realized that Adrian was going to shoot her, and was aiming for her chest. He remembers seeing the terror in Felicity’s gaze and jumping into action, throwing himself in front of her and the bullet tearing through his right side. Better his side than her heart. And he very distinctly remembers the shocked tears in Felicity’s blue eyes as she saw what he did to save her.

After that, everything is a little bit blurry. They obviously managed to get him help and transport him across the country back to CIA HQ, because he’s sitting on a medical bed down in Level 10 with Dr. Schwartz stitching his side right now. The fuzziness in his head now is caused by painkillers, and although his side is numb so he can’t feel the needle puncturing his skin, he’s still hurt, mostly because of his teammates' harsh words as they shout at him.

“Fucking reckless,” Adrian spits. “The hell were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that you were aiming at her chest and you were going to kill her,” Oliver responds, his voice ever so slightly slurred. “Mission is to bring her in alive and unharmed. Couldn’t let you hit her.” He decides mentioning that he’s kind of in love with her and seeing her get hurt would have been more painful than taking the bullet is not a good idea. Especially as Director Lance is leaning against the wall opposite, staring scrutinizingly at the agent as if he can just sense he has something to hide.

Tommy emits a faint noise of disbelief. “So you jumped in front and took the bullet for her? What in the world made you think that was a good idea?”

“Wasn’t thinking very much at the time,” he mutters.

“Obviously,” Tommy throws his hands in the air, and exits the room out of frustration. Adrian trails out behind him with one last, “Fuck you, Queen,” before vanishing.

Dr. Schwartz finishes stitching the wound up shortly after that, bandaging it up and clearing him to go home, although he’ll have to come and find her to get the bandages changed first thing in the morning.

“I honestly thought Agent Chase was going to kill her,” Oliver tells Lance, once he and the Director are alone. “He was hyped on adrenaline and he enjoys killing people when he’s in that state. He says he wasn’t aiming for her chest, but I saw him. He was. You told me you wanted her brought in alive and unharmed.”

“I would prefer for her to be brought in alive and shot than not be brought in at all,” is all the Director responds with, before leaving too.

They have a low-level agent drive him home to his apartment. Oliver is on the verge of passing out from exhaustion by the time he gets in and closes the door, collapsing onto the couch with a small whimper as his side flares with pain at the movement.

His cell phone from Felicity pings.

_23:14 RECEIVED: where are you?_

He texts her back his address and settles back in the cushions, content to just sit there and breathe with his eyes shut for a couple of minutes. As he dozes, he realizes after a while that he’s not alone in his apartment. It’s not hard to guess who he’s been joined by. The agent didn’t hear her enter through the door, but he can sense her presence, mostly due to the increasing static electricity in the room and the feeling of charged particles in the air. When Oliver opens his eyes, she’s standing in front of him, so close that he could easily reach out and touch her if he wishes to. He really has no clue how she could have got here that fast - only an hour ago, she was thousands of miles away, across the other side of the States. But she’s a Deviant, and full of surprises, he guesses.

Her hood has been pushed down so he can see her face, and she looks so sad. She’s clearly upset and refuses to look at him directly. “Are you okay?” Felicity asks, her voice so quiet he can barely hear her.

“It was a simple through and through,” he reassures her. “I’m on painkillers so can hardly feel it.”

She nods. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“I wasn’t going to let him kill you.”

She finally shifts to meet his eyes, and the guilt in her gaze is stifling. “Maybe you should have,” she whispers. “I would have deserved it.”

It saddens Oliver immensely to know Felicity thinks she should have been shot, didn’t deserve to be saved. But after how the government has been treating Deviants for years, hunting them down to be caged, controlled and experimented on, who can blame her for her frame of mind? His heart sinks in his chest. He knows exactly who to blame: the very people he works for. And that, unfortunately, means he’s partly to blame as well.

“No, you wouldn’t have,” he tells her, his voice firm and sure. “I know that for a fact. I made my own decision to step in front of the gun because you didn’t deserve to be shot, and I was the reason it was being fired at you in the first place. Adrian is on my team, after all. I’m responsible for his actions, and for my own. I don’t regret what I did, Felicity. If we were placed in the exact same situation again, I wouldn’t change anything. I would take that bullet for you all over again. Please don’t blame yourself.”

To his relief, Felicity nods slowly, her hands fidgeting as she stares down at the floor. She appears quite awkward now, standing just in front of him as he sits on the couch, as she obviously has no idea what to do, having entered a basic stranger’s home - well, not a stranger, a secret agent who is meant to be tracking her down but is actually helping her, but they certainly don’t know each other very well, at least not yet.

“Do you want to sit down next to me?” he asks.

She visibly gulps, eyes flickering to the space next to him. “Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t sure.”

“... okay.”

Oliver shuffles sideways on the couch to give her more room, aware that she might still want to maintain some distance between them. But Felicity ignores the provided extra space and takes a seat beside him, their arms and shoulders brushing as they essentially lean onto each other. They sit in silence for a couple minutes, adjusting to what feels like a change in their dynamic.

As if suddenly realizing how close they are, Felicity slides quickly away from him, so fast that the agent doesn’t anticipate the movement and when he twists to see what she’s doing, it causes his side to twinge painfully. The blonde’s gaze zeroes in on his injured side instantly.

Her trembling hands hesitantly tug at the hem of his t-shirt, silently requesting he show her the wound. Oliver sits forward slightly so that he can help her in lifting the fabric, exposing the bandages wrapped around his side. He stays utterly still as Felicity’s fingertips gently stroke over the area, slipping behind his back to touch the bandages there as well, and he imagines she’s trying to work out how the bullet tore through him, what its path was through his body and how close it came to hitting vital organs.

“Two inches to the left and this would have ruptured your intestines,” she mutters to herself.

“Good thing it wasn’t then,” he replies.

“How can you be so blasé about this?” She stares at him, angry and distressed, her eyes filled with dismay.

“I’ve been shot before, Felicity,” Oliver smiles at her gently. “It’s not a new experience for me.”

“How many times have you almost died before?” she demands.

Sighing, he admits, “Too many to count.”

All of the light bulbs illuminating the room burst at once, casting them into darkness. Oliver remains frozen with fear at the abrupt reminder that Felicity is powerful. The only sound in the room is the blonde’s harsh breathing. After a moment, she clicks her fingers and the lamp placed on the other side of the room turns on, followed by the lights in the kitchen.

“Sorry,” she mumbles. “Sometimes… my emotions get the better of me. I should go.”

“Felicity, wait -”

But he’s too late. But the time he speaks, she’s already out the door, disappearing into the shadows once again.

* * *

The idea of Felicity possibly reciprocating his feelings for her is ludicrous to Oliver. He loves her, but the chance of her ever loving him back is less likely than winning the lottery. That’s how unlikely it is. Oliver refuses to let it depress him, though. Even if Felicity will never want to be with him in a romantic sense, he hopes they can reach the point of mutual trust where they can be friends.

She must be starting to trust him, because at the next fight, which occurs just outside of Boston, Massachusetts, she hurriedly asks him to go to a particular street in passing, just as she deflects a storm of bullets fired by the police with an electric field. Casting wary glances around the area to make sure Tommy and Adrian are occupied (and they are, Diggle and the cars he’s throwing at them using his telekinetic abilities are keeping them very busy), Oliver hastily finds the deserted street, which was cleared of all civilians by the police only twenty minutes ago.

Dinah is there with the metal-manipulator guy and another girl who Oliver doesn’t recognize. He doesn’t focus in on them, however. He just can’t stop staring at the two toddlers Dinah is carrying in her arms, and the kid huddling into the girl’s legs. All three of the children are dirty with torn, cheap clothing, and his heart lurches at the sight of blood and bandages on one of the toddlers. These are the children who Felicity and the Deviants are attacking the facilities to save - the children that they’re all fighting for. 

The metal-manipulator notices him and raises a huge distorted support bar of steel into the air to chuck at him, but Dinah calls out, “Roy, wait, that’s Felicity’s secret agent guy.”

“ _This_ guy?” Roy scoffs, dropping the steel bar back to the ground.

“So you’re the Oliver Queen she doesn’t stop talking about!” the new girl says, bright and happy as she darts forward to grab and shake his hand. The kid, he can see it’s a girl now, continues hiding behind her, but peers up at the agent curiously. “Nice to meet you, I’m Alena.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Oliver says. Kneeling down, he waves at the kid, murmuring, “Hey, sweetie. Are you okay?”

She’s very scared but peeks her head out behind Alena’s legs, reaching forward to hesitantly return the high five he offers. “Alena rescued me from the bad place,” the girl whispers.

“I know, and we’re gonna make sure you never have to go back there,” he reassures her. Straightening back to full height, he turns to Dinah and asks seriously, “Please tell me you have a plan to get these children out of here.”

“She should be arriving any minute now,” Dinah says, offloading one of the toddlers onto him.

He cradles the child to his chest carefully, swallowing when he feels how light he is. He’s most definitely underweight and malnourished. The little boy buries his head into Oliver’s neck with a weak whimper, clutching at his leather jacket, which just makes the agent want to hug him tighter.

Out of nowhere, a woman in a hazy mist, shaking out her hair which is frazzled and sticking up on end. A teleporter, Oliver realizes. That’s how they’re able to travel around the country so easily, and how Felicity ended up in his apartment when only an hour before that, she’s been thousands of miles away. “I’m here, I’m here,” she breathes. “Sorry about the wait.”

“Cutting it a bit fine, Lyla,” Roy responds. “Ready to get out of here?”

“Where are Felicity and Johnny?” the woman questions concernedly. She points at Oliver. “Who’s this guy?”

“Felicity’s CIA agent boyfriend,” Roy answers.

“You know she hates you calling him that, especially as it’s not true,” Dinah scowls at him. “Lyla, we’re going to have to leave without her and Dig. She said to get the kids to safety as soon as possible and that if that means we have to go without them, we have to.”

“I can make sure they’re not hurt and get away safely,” Oliver tells him, handing the toddler he’s carrying over to Lyla, who shushes the little boy and rocks him to comfort him when he begins whimpering again.

Roy, Dinah, Alena, and Lyla all exchange looks, their expression blank as they communicate silently. Oliver doesn’t have to be a genius to know that they don’t trust him, and they’re trying to figure out if he’s true to his word.

“Get Felicity to text us when she and Dig are somewhere off the grid,” Lyla says. “I’ll come and pick them up.”

He re-joins the main fight and somehow, he manages to distract Tommy and Adrian and misdirect the police long enough for Diggle and Felicity to get away. He and his team leave the scene just as the firefighters arrive to start tackling the fires that rage in the scientific facility that Felicity set a bomb off in moments before vanishing, reducing it to burnt rubble.

It’s late, nearly midnight, and they decide to grab hotel rooms and stay in Boston for the night instead of taking the plane back to HQ, as they’re all pretty much exhausted. Oliver tells his team that he’s taking the car to head over to a cheap 24 hour liquor store he saw open several blocks down, pretending to be pissed off about losing his target for what feels like the twentieth time. Tommy and Adrian just throw ten dollar bills at him with their own orders, not bothered by their leader leaving.

_01:14 SENT: where are you_

_01:23 RECEIVED: not sure tbh. sending you our gps location now_

He follows the coordinates to a stingy back alleyway. As he steps out of the car, Felicity and Diggle appear from behind dumpsters, both of them looking tired, but they’re thankfully unhurt.

“The kids?” Felicity asks worriedly.

“Lyla got them all out,” he says.

She sighs in relief. “Thank god.”

“Come on, get in. I’ll take you to a motel outside the city where you can stay for the night. Lyla wanted me to remind you to text her so she can pick you up later.”

He pays cash in hand for two double bed motel rooms for the night, as paying for one when there are three of them is more likely to attract attention than avoid it, like they’re hoping. Leaving Felicity and Diggle to settle in, he returns to his hotel briefly to drop Tommy and Adrian’s alcohol off for them. Telling them he’s heading in for the night, he places a Do Not Disturb sign outside the hotel room he’s paid for but is not going to use before catching a cab out to the motel. The taxi driver seems confused about why his customer is paying for a trip from a four-star hotel to a no star motel, but Oliver tips generously to keep the guy’s mouth shut.

Knocking on one of the room’s doors quietly, he rears his head back when Felicity answers wearily, gazing at him with worn out, drained eyes. She allows him inside, locking the door and then striding over to the bed, tossing herself onto it face-first.

“Dig’s asleep in the other room,” she tells him, voice muffled by the blankets.

“You should probably sleep too,” he says. “You look exhausted.”

“You do too,” she replies, reluctantly heaving herself up to sit cross-legged with a pillow in her lap.

“I’m used to all-nighters,” he smiles. “I’ll stay awake and keep watch… you take the bed.”

“There’s nothing to keep watch for,” she blinks sleepily. “Your CIA guys can’t track us here and Lyla’s not coming until the morning. We both need sleep so we should share the bed.” Her eyes skitter down to the floor. “Unless you’re too afraid to sleep in the same bed as a dangerous, uncontrollable Deviant.”

“Hey, I’m fine with it,” he replies, raising his hands into the surrender position. “Just… are you sure you are?”

“You saved me from being shot, helped my friends get those children to safety and helped Dig and I get away from the fight today. As much as I hate to admit it, I think I’m starting to trust you.”

Their minds decided, the two of them clamber into bed together, lying with a good foot’s space between them. Oliver lies in an uncomfortable corpse position, not wanting to overstep or accidentally touch Felicity when he suspects she doesn’t want to be touched. The technopath switches the lights off with a wave of her hand and they both stare up at the ceiling, bathed in pitch black silence.

“This is stupid,” Felicity says.

“What is?”

“How we’re so terrified to touch each other.” She shifts and Oliver is shocked to see that her beautiful cobalt eyes are actually _luminous_ in the darkness as she turns onto her side. He forces himself not to react as he feels her foot prodding at his skin, and then her sliding closer so their knees are bumping. “Is this okay?”

“Fine,” he responds, breathless. It’s not as if he’s only ever dreamt of being this close to Felicity in a bed before. And it’s not as if he’s suddenly feeling very hot and flushing because oh god, _please not now_. Not when she’s just beginning to trust him.

“It’s alright,” she says quietly. “You can touch me. I trust you.”

Biting his lip, he slowly winds his arms around her, embracing her to his chest. She stiffens for a brief moment before relaxing, actually snuggling into him. Oliver tries to keep a little distance between their hips because he can only imagine how she would freak out if she realized how much this was affecting him, but can’t resist burying his nose into her hair, inhaling. She smells strangely staticky and metallic, but there’s a soft undertone of cinnamon and vanilla that must come from the shampoo she uses, and it’s oddly soothing. They fall into silence again, although this time, it’s more comfortable.

“Oliver,” she whispers.

“Hmm?”

The technopath’s lips brush against his ear, triggering his breath to hitch. “Kiss me.”

His heart skips a beat and for a moment he thinks his brain has shorted out. This can’t seriously be happening, can it? But he feels Felicity slip her knee between his legs and nip at his earlobe with a soft growl, and without any hesitation, all common sense draining out of him as his brain just chants _kiss her, kiss her, kiss her,_ he bends down and crashes his lips to hers.

Felicity moans, seemingly thrilled by him obeying her command. She attempts to deepen the kiss, her arm wrapping around his waist and tightening so she can shift their positions. She uses her enhanced strength to flip Oliver over onto his back, towering over him with a dark, heated expression. Within the agent’s chest, there’s a deep, unknown yet enticing, feeling; like a flame flaring inside of him, setting him alight for what feels like the first time ever. She vaults onto him, settling down into the crease of his hip bones and flicking a stray lock of blonde hair behind her ear before leaning down and kissing him again. The feeling of her weight on top of him, her hands securing his wrists above him and her tongue licking at his lips reminds Oliver of who is in control here - it’s certainly not him.

She releases his arms so she can thread her fingers into his hair and pull it firmly, making his back arch with a gasp. His newly-freed calloused hands cradle and stroke down the blonde’s back and sides gently, exploring her. As he touches her, the fire in his chest spreads, electrifying his senses to a delicious frenzy, and it feels like his nerves are being fried. Whether or not it’s Felicity’s powers affecting him, he has no idea. She breaks away from the kiss with a haggard gasp, tilting her head away from his as she yanks him up from the bed roughly and unexpectedly, causing Oliver to inhale sharply. She strips him of his shirt quickly before yanking her own off, throwing them both to the floor.

He manages to stop her, catching her waist before her lips meet his again. She smiles down at him and he responds with a brilliant grin, but it falls off his face as he forces himself to wonder whether what they’re doing is appropriate.

“Are you sure we should be doing this?” he murmurs.

“Does it matter?” she replies, quirking an eyebrow.

It does, but then Felicity starts grinding down on his crotch as she simultaneously undoes her bra, and Oliver’s brain busts a fuse again.

“There’s a condom in my jacket.”

She rolls off him to fetch it.

* * *

Accidental, meaningless sex.

That’s what Felicity calls it.

It’s six am and he’s forced himself to get out of bed early so he can return to the hotel and meet Adrian and Tommy in breakfast, so they don’t suspect anything. His minuscule movements as he shifts to slip out from under the blankets wake up Felicity, but she just lies there, the sheets pulled up to cover her naked body as she watches him dress with half-lidded eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes softly. “I have to get back so my team doesn’t realize I snuck out.” He leans in to press a kiss to her lips, but Felicity turns, shifting so he can’t reach her. Oliver pauses, confused and alarmed at why she’s pulling away from him. “Felicity?”

“It didn’t mean anything, Oliver,” she tells him, her voice did. “It… it was an accident.”

He can’t believe he’s hearing this. He stares at her in utter incredulity. “An accident?” he repeats.

“Yes,” she whispers, gazing steadfastly up at the ceiling.

Annoyance flares and he grits out, “Felicity, you didn’t exactly slip and fall on my dick, did you? This _wasn't_ an accident.”

“Fine,” she agrees. “But it was still meaningless. Or, it was to me.”

“Well it wasn’t to me!” he responds fiercely.

She snorts and rolls over in bed so her back is turned to him. “Stop being so dramatic, Oliver. Have you never had a one night stand before?”

It this what it feels like to have your heart broken?

“Is that all I am to you?” he asks, his voice shaking in anger. “A one night stand?”

“It was just sex, Oliver,” she snaps. “We can still be allies, alright? You can still help the Deviants and I save those children from your government’s horrific torture experiments. It would be better for both of us if we just… forget last night ever happened.”

But how can he? How could he possibly forget last night… when it was the first time he actually felt happy in years?

Grabbing his jacket from the floor, he spits, “Glad to know I’m just a _mistake_ to you. Lyla will be here in half an hour, you might want to get dressed,” before exiting the room and slamming the door shut behind him.

If he hears Felicity’s anguished sob through the cheap hardwood, he ignores it and keeps walking.

* * *

Their next encounter a few days later is… awkward, to say the least. Oliver avoids looking at Felicity and only interacts with her Deviant friends when he has to, throughout the confrontation in front of the Kansas City scientific facility. They manage to get one of the kids out before Roy gets injured, Adrian gets too close to shooting Dinah, and Lyla has to whisk them all away to safety.

Obviously, the others realize something happened between him and Felicity, because that evening he’s back at his apartment near CIA HQ eating Chinese takeout and watching depressing Netflix films when Lyla pops into existence on top of his coffee table, Diggle beside her. The coffee table immediately becomes a pile of snapped wooden pieces.

“Oh.” Diggle looks down at the table he just crushed. “Sorry about that.” He doesn’t sound very sorry at all.

“It’s okay, I can just get a new one,” he replies.

“Great. Can you tell us what you did to upset Felicity now?” Lyla asks, crossing her arms over her chest with an accusing look.

“ _I_ upset _her?_ ”

“Yeah, she’s all mopey and sad all the time,” Diggle says. “It’s really bad.”

Oliver stands and ambles over to the kitchen to throw his takeout container into the trash and get a glass of water. “Well, if you must know, Felicity and I kissed and had sex in that motel room in Boston and it was the best night of my life and then the next morning Felicity told me it was accidental and meaningless to her and we should forget it ever happened.” He holds up the water jug. “Drink?”

“Fucking hell,” Diggle swears, taking a seat on the couch.

“I owe Roy fifty dollars,” Lyla mutters.

“So forgive me if I don’t believe your story about her being _upset_ ,” Oliver continues, opening his freezer a little too violently than he probably should to grab a couple of ice cubes for his drink. “Because I think if anybody is _upset_ out of the two of us, it’s me.”

Diggle runs a hand over his face. “Oliver, it wasn’t meaningless for her. She was lying to you. She was _scared_.”

“Why would she have been scared?”

“Er, maybe because you’re a CIA agent on a mission to track down and capture her?” Lyla suggests sarcastically.

“She said she trusts me.” He glances away, correcting, “Trusted me.”

“Felicity doesn’t trust anybody, for good reason,” Diggle says. “But there is no way that sex was meaningless for her. If she kissed you and had sex with you, she must care about you an awful lot, Queen.”

“Oliver. I just told you about my sex life, we might as well call me by my first name.”

Lyla’s hand falls supportively onto the agent’s shoulder as she pleads, “Don’t give up on Felicity yet. Give her a chance.”

He swallows. He wants to hold onto hope that Felicity might love him back. He wants to believe Diggle when he says that she was lying when she said their night together was meaningless, wants to believe it did mean something for her, maybe even meant as much to her as it did to him.

“You two should leave,” he says quietly.

Diggle and Lyla go.

He wants to give the technopath another chance. But he doesn’t know whether he can trust Felicity with his heart again, not after she fractured it last time.

* * *

At the next fight against the Deviants, outside a small lab building in the fringes of the city of Sacramento, California, Oliver watches as Tommy points his gun at Felicity, who is carrying a terrified, bleeding little girl with needle marks littering her arms, and the technopath thrusts a hand towards him.

Tommy collapses to the ground.

Dead.

He doesn’t know to say, or think, or feel. Dissociation is a symptom of shock and Oliver knows this is the biggest shock he’s ever received in his life. Felicity killed one of his team members, one of his best friends. She didn’t even hesitate. She just pointed at him and killed him.

He and Adrian take Tommy’s body back to HQ and Oliver listens to the doctor’s report feeling as if his mind has disconnected from his body. He stares emotionlessly as the doctor explains that Smoak’s ability to control electricity allowed her to interfere with his the electrical signals involved in his heart and brain’s functions. She killed him painlessly and instantly.

Oliver didn’t even know Felicity could do that.

If she can control people’s bodily functions by controlling their nervous and electrical signals, that means that she can make them feel or do anything she wants them to. He can’t help but wonder… has she used her powers like that on him before? Did she induce his trust in her by messing with his brain? Did she compel him to start developing feelings for her, force him to agree to kiss and have sex with her?

Before he even knows it, he has full control of his body and emotions again, and he’s shaking, he wants to scream, he’s more livid and enraged than he’s ever been in his entire life. This is an anger even more intense than when he found out about the Deviant children being experimented or.

The doctor tries to reassure him that Smoak gave Tommy a merciful death.

Oliver doesn’t care. He doesn’t care that he knows Felicity was protecting that tiny, vulnerable Deviant child and that she most probably felt like she didn’t have any other choice. He doesn’t care that it was technically self-defense. Because Felicity still killed his friend. Whether it was _merciful_ or not doesn’t matter. Tommy is dead, and it was Felicity who murdered him.

_00:43 SENT: get to my apartment. right now_

_00:46 RECEIVED: okay_

He’s sitting on the floor against the wall, nursing a glass of whiskey when Felicity arrives. He doesn’t see her immediately because Lyla has dropped her off outside on the balcony. Ignoring her delicate knock on the window, he heaves himself to his feet, stumbling to the side as he still hasn’t quite recovered from the shock, heading into the kitchen to refill his glass. Drinking immediately after refilling, Oliver braces his hands on the island and dips his head to his chest, scrunching his eyes up in pain.

At some point, after the five-minute mark, Felicity must let herself in, because when he turns around, she’s standing a few feet away from him in the middle of the room. Huddled into herself, she looks like a complete mess, tear tracks staining her cheeks and her eyes red from crying. Changed out of her usual purple and black suit, the technopath is wearing simple skinny jeans and a floral top. It’s the most normal clothes Oliver thinks he’s ever seen her in.

“You killed Tommy,” he says quietly.

Immediately, she tears up, glancing away from him in shame. Good. She should feel ashamed. She murdered somebody. “I’m so sorry.”

“My _best friend!_ ” he shouts, stepping forwards threateningly. Felicity startles and backs off in the face of his fury, looking frightened but he should be the one who’s frightened. She just killed Tommy and she could so easily kill him too. “ _My best friend,_ Felicity! And you just killed him! Pointed at him and within half a second, stopped his heart and his brain from functioning!”

She starts sobbing. Oliver hates it. He doesn’t know how to deal with her crying.

“Is it that easy for you to control the human body?” he yells at her. “You point at somebody, you kill them. Could you control me? Have you been controlling me? Making me have these _feelings_ for you, tricking me into wanting to kiss you, into having sex with you?”

“No, Oliver, of course not!” she responds, shaking her head desperately. “I would never do that, never! Humans - they all have nervous systems, electrical signals controlling and powering their bodies. I can read them, manipulate them, yes. It’s - it’s just like the code of a computer. All ones and zeroes, programs and algorithms that can be altered and changed, but I would never control a human, not unless I had to!” She breaks off, her crying so heavy now that he can barely understand what she’s saying. “P-Please believe me, I didn’t want to kill Tommy. But he was gonna shoot at me and the child and I - I panicked!”

“So you panic, and you _kill somebody?_ What, next time somebody taps you on the shoulder and surprises you, are you going to stop their heart!?”

“It’s not like that, Oliver, and you know it!” she cries. As she does so, all of the lights in the apartment flicker, affected by the strong emotions she’s emitting.

“You’re a monster!” he screams at her. “You killed my best friend! You - you kissed me and had sex for me and then basically told me I was _nothing_ to you! And the worst part of all of this is that _I love you!_ ”

She looks shell-shocked. Completely and utterly spooked. “O-Oliver -”

“I love the woman that I’m meant to be hunting down and capturing because she’s a fucking terrorist and attacking government facilities! I love the woman who called me _dramatic_ for possibly having feelings for her! _I love the woman who killed my best friend!_ ” he yells. “Do you _see how messed up that is?!_ ”

Felicity flees, sobbing too much for her to possibly consider continuing this fight with him.

Before she leaves, however, she whispers, “I told you... you should have let your friend kill me when he had the chance. I deserved to die then and I deserve to die now.”

Alone, Oliver hurls his now empty glass of whiskey into the wall, howling in frustration.

* * *

Felicity is captured the next day. Oliver and Adrian are both fueled by their anger at Tommy’s death and although Oliver doesn’t want to find and hurt Felicity, he does need some action to take his mind off things. He sends Adrian to Chicago on what he thinks is a bogus lead and picks one up himself in Detroit.

He doesn’t find out that Felicity got captured the next day after their fight because Adrian doesn’t tell him he caught her until three days after.

Oliver feels every ounce of anger he has towards Felicity washing away and horror setting in instead as Adrian boasts how he found her in one of the police precincts after she was apparently assaulted and nearly raped at a bar, where she’d been drinking heavily. She’s been transported back to Level 10 HQ and locked in a lead-lined, electric field proof cell and there’s absolutely no chance of her escaping.

He takes the first available flight back and practically sprints all the way from the airport to HQ, not bothering to take a taxi. His heart pounds painfully in his chest as he heads into Level 10 HQ, trying not to look too on edge otherwise somebody might approach him and question why. A twenty-second conversation with Curtis about where they’re keeping Felicity reveals her location to him, and before he knows it, he’s standing in front of her cell, appalled at what he’s seeing.

The cell they threw her into has cushioned walls so she can’t hurt himself, and only contains a toilet and small sink. The only light has a protective barrier that stops Felicity from potentially using her powers on it, and it’s dim that he can hardly see inside. This holding cell is more of a cage than anything else.

That’s not what outrages him the most.

They threw Felicity in there naked. They stripped her of her clothes and tossed her into a cell, vulnerable, cold and exposed. She’s currently curled up in the corner in the smallest ball she can possibly make, her entire body shaking with fear. Judging by the pallor of her skin and from what he can see of her sunken eyes, they haven’t provided her with any kind of water or food since they got her here.

Now Oliver is angry, but not at Felicity. He’s angry because how _dare_ they treat another human being like this?

He calls one of the guards and demands to be let in there. The guy protests at first, blabbering on about how the prisoner is dangerous and could hurt him etc, but when Oliver fixes him with a deadly look, he caves.

As soon as he gets inside, the agent pulls off his leather jacket and very gently covers Felicity with it. She shudders as the warmth of it sweeps over her, reaching out with thin, spindly fingers to clutch it close to her. Oliver strokes over her hair softly, trying to comfort her but she just flinches away from him, huddling more into her corner.

Glancing up at the guard, he commands, “Go and get some clothes for her, right now.”

“But Agent Chase said -”

“I said now!” he shouts. Of course, Chase would be the sick son of a bitch who would say Felicity wasn’t allowed any clothes. “And bring some water and food back with you too. I’ll be okay in here with her.”

“Yes, Sir.” The guard shuts the door and scuttles off to obey his orders.

He sits down with his back to the door, blocking the cell window’s view to Felicity so that if anybody peers in, they won’t see her. She peeks out from under his jacket with somber, tired blue eyes and Oliver almost chokes on a sob at her resigned, tired expression. As if she’s accepted her fate, is going to allow herself to be defeated.

Her voice is a faint croak as she whispers, “They can’t hear us… or see us… they’re too afraid I would use my powers on any cameras or mics.”

Offering her his hand to hold, tears spring to Oliver’s eyes when she eyes it warily, as if thinking it might be some sort of trap. “I’m so sorry,” he murmurs. “I… I should have been here. I should have made sure they wouldn’t treat you like this.”

“I thought you hated me,” she whimpers, burying her head in her knees.

“No, never. I could never hate you. I… I was so angry,” he admits. “With what happened with Tommy. It’s… it’s gonna take me a while to forgive you for that. But I promise, Felicity, I could never hate you.” He swallows. “I was wrong, you’re not a monster.”

“Yes, I am. That’s why they’ve put me in here,” she motions to the cell. 

“You shouldn’t be,” he says. “You’re not a monster. Don’t let them convince you that you are.” Oliver shuffles closer, stroking his hand over her bare back and shoulders to soothe the sobs that start coming forth. “I’m here, Felicity. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here for you.”

She curls into his side, hiding her face in his shirt as she cries. Oliver wraps his arms around her and holds her, completely ignoring the fact that she’s naked as he lifts her half onto his lap, only focusing on calming her down and comforting her. When the guard returns, he averts his eyes and passes over underwear, a bra, grey sweatpants and a hoodie. Respectfully, he turns his back and even holds up Oliver’s jacket to shield them as Oliver helps the technopath put on the clothes, as she’s shaking too much for her hands to properly work. He asks Oliver if Felicity needs socks and he agrees for her, aiding her in slipping them onto her freezing cold feet when she’s too stiff to bend over. The guard also hands over three bottles of water and a small plastic pot of what appears to be warm oatmeal with raisins. It takes Felicity a while to eat it as each spoonful takes a minute or two to settle in her stomach, but she finishes it and one of the bottles of water too.

“Director Lance wants to see you,” the guard tells Oliver, once he’s returned on another errand for the agent to fetch a couple of woolen blankets to keep Felicity warm in the cold cell. “He said now.”

He nods. “I’ll come back, okay?” he assures Felicity.

She nods, wrapped in her new blankets. Oliver takes back his leather jacket from the guard and for good measure, tucks that around Felicity too. He doesn’t kiss her on the forehead as he wants to as the guard is watching, but he shoots her a reassuring look, which she responds to with a weak smile.

As the guard escorts him up to the Director’s office, he can sense the man is staring at him curiously, wondering why he acted like that towards Felicity. He never asks Oliver any questions, though. Lance is waiting, standing in front of his desk when Oliver finally arrives, and he waves the agent in, asking him to close the door.

“What’s this I’m hearing about you demanding clothes, water, and food for our prisoner?” he asks Oliver with a raised eyebrow, looking disapproving.

“Smoak may be a Deviant, and a criminal, but she’s still a human being,” Oliver answers calmly. “She was being treated cruelly. It’s to my understanding that while she’s in CIA custody, she has the right to ask for shelter, food, water, clothing and medical help. Chase was being a bastard when he stripped her and told the guards not to give her clothes, food or water. I was just being a decent person.”

Lance narrows his eyes but says, “Alright. That’s understandable. I suppose we will need her in good condition over the next coming days for interrogations and testing. Dismissed, Agent Queen.”

“Testing?” he repeats, keeping his face carefully blank.

“Dismissed,” Lance says, much more firmly this time.

Oliver trails out of the office with a sinking feeling in his gut.

* * *

He finds out what ‘testing’ they’re doing on Felicity when Adrian comes and laughs to him about they’re trailing out a couple of new drugs out on her. He’s utterly disgusted. He can do nothing except try and make Felicity comfortable in her cell when she returns back from the tests. Sometimes she comes back simply bone-tired and spent, too tired to stand, and she collapses in Oliver’s arms with breathless sighs, but occasionally she comes back crying from the pain she’s in, digging her nails into her arms so deeply that she draws blood, and the agent is forced to hold her down as she kicks and screams, begging to die.

Those are the worst days. When Oliver has to try and physically restrain her, fighting against her enhanced strength, to stop her from hurting herself. Being in love with somebody has never been so agonizing.

Everything goes to shit when on the sixth day of Felicity’s ‘testing’, they bring her back late in the evening, much later than they usually do, unconscious and unresponsive.

He tries to appear indifferent to her condition as she watches them carry her into her cell, asking with a frown, “What happened?”

Adrian appears and slings his arm around Oliver’s shoulder, chuckling darkly, “Waller’s testing a new drug out on her in hopes that it’ll lead to her hunting down the rest of the Deviants _for_ us. It’s some compound that attacks the cerebral cortex and makes you wanna kill everybody you love and care about.”

The blank, uninterested expression Oliver schools his face into is the complete opposite of how he’s actually feeling, revolted and sickened by what Adrian is saying. His blood runs cold at the idea of Felicity tracking down and attacking her friends. He imagines Diggle, Lyla, Alena, Roy and Dinah running towards her in delight that she managed to escape, but then that delight morphing into horror as their leader begins to summon bolts of crackling blue electricity and aiming at them.

He has to put a stop to this. Whatever it takes.

“She should be unconscious for around five hours before it kicks in properly and she wakes up,” Adrian continues. “Hey, wanna go get a drink?”

“No thank you,” Oliver replies, already walking off as he begins to formulate a plan in his mind.

He’s getting Felicity out, and he’s getting her out tonight.

With his Level 10 status, it’s almost too easy to find and view the schedules of all the different guards on Felicity’s cell block anonymously, as well as use CCTV to time their comings and goings and track Adrian and the other agents who hang around. Waller has already left for the night and most of the other higher-ups have too. It only takes a well-timed alarm being set off in a distance corridor to get all of the people who pose a threat to his plan out of the way, and then Oliver is able to run down to Felicity’s cell, scoop her up into his arms and smuggle her out of HQ.

Stealing one of the cars parked in the CIA’s private lot, he gently lies the unconscious technopath down on the backseat, tucking a blanket around her, before driving around the city in a random pattern, so if they’re followed, it throws the trackers off. He then abandons the car, walks a couple of blocks through an area he knows doesn’t have CCTV, steals another car and drives not to his apartment, but his own private safe house outside the city. Switching cars a couple more times, by the time they reach the safehouse, a small two bedroomed lodge nestled deep within the forest, at least four hours have passed.

He carefully maneuvers Felicity onto one of the beds, draping blankets over her and placing a pillow beneath her head to make sure she doesn’t get a sore neck later. Stroking her hair out of her face, Oliver presses a fond kiss to her forehead before retreating out of the room and grabbing a drink from the kitchen.

There’s nothing more he can do now except wait.

He must drop off to sleep briefly after he fires up his Netflix account and selects a good sitcom to watch, because the next thing he knows, he’s being shocked awake by the TV suddenly switching off and all the lights flashing on and off, some of the bulbs shattering. His eyes widen. Felicity is awake.

She’s sitting up against the headboard with her knees to her chest, hyperventilating when he runs up and enters the bedroom. Felicity’s eyes are wild and terrified, and she obviously has no idea where she is, which is causing her to panic. The agent doesn’t touch her, just sits on the edge of the bed and shushes her gently, reassuring her that she’s okay, she’s fine, he got here out of there. But the feral look in her eyes doesn’t fade and her gaze sharpens as she stares at him, her breaths becoming deeper and heavier.

“Felicity?” he questions worriedly. His anxiety spikes when she narrows her eyes at him, glaring at him… as if he’s some piece of prey. That makes her the predator, and considering her powers, she’s an apex one. Oliver stands slowly and backs off. “Felicity, what’s the matter?”

Felicity’s hands ball tightly into fists. “What’s going on with me?” she grits out in a growl. “I… I can’t control…”

“Waller drugged you,” Oliver explains quickly. “It’s - it’s some chemical that makes you want to kill people that you love and care about. Experimental.”

Felicity hunches over as if she’s in pain, releasing a long groan, but when the agent darts forwards concernedly to check on her, she raises her head and snarls ferociously, “Don’t! Don’t come near me.” Oliver’s heart twinges as he helplessly watches her dig her hands into her hair and yank on it. “Oliver. You… you have to run.”

“What? No,” he protests. “Look, if this drug only makes you attack the people you love, I’ll be fine. We both know why, we established that in that Boston motel room not long ago.”

His words only seem to cause her more pain, twisting around and gripping the headboard so tightly it starts to crack, banging her head against the wall above it with a tortured moan. “ _Oliver._ RUN.”

“Look, I don’t need to, I can stay here and make sure you don’t track down and hurt anybody you do actually love, like Roy, or Dig, or Lyla and Alena and Dinah -”

“Oliver, _I love you!_ ” she whips around and snarls at him. The headboard explodes under her hands, splinters burying into her flesh and flying everywhere. “I always have, okay!? I was scared before that you’d get hurt if I let you in, that I would hurt you. I - I thought pushing you away would save you. I love you too and now I don’t have any control over my actions and I _want to kill you. RUN!_ ”

He runs.

But as the agent flings himself out of the room, skidding on the smooth wooden floorboards as he rushes towards the kitchen, Felicity’s words echo in his mind, and an overwhelming, raw sense of happiness swells inside of him. For a second, it doesn’t matter to him that the love of his life is trying to kill him - the only thing that matters is that _she loves him back_.

Oliver’s promptly returns to reality when Felicity tackles him to ground from behind with a vicious snarl. Her strength is too much for him, it always has been, and she pins him easily with her knee in his stomach, her hands wrapping around his throat. She squeezes, choking him out with a murderous glint in her eyes, the spark growing brighter as she hears his agonized gasps, his hands scrambling at her shoulders to try and push him off. His blood pumping and adrenalin jumping into action as he begins to feel dizzy from oxygen deprivation, _I’m sorry_ flits through his thoughts before gathers all of his strength and slams his fist up, straight into Felicity’s face.

The technopath flies off him with a howl of pain. All of the lights short out and both the oven, microwave, and coffee machine on the kitchen counters spontaneously combust, due to the surge of electricity provided by Felicity’s powers. It’s a stark reminder that she could kill him by simply willing his nervous system to shut down, so he has to wonder why she hasn’t done that.

The only explanation is that Felicity is fighting it somehow. She’s subconsciously fighting the drug, forcing herself to fight him physically rather than use her powers on him. And if she’s willing to fight to stop herself from killing him, then he can fight to stop her too.

Oliver staggers to his feet, still struggling to breathe, but panic and the sheer will to survive take over. The only way he’s going to get through this alive is if he gets Felicity into a contained area where she can’t use her powers. The basement has a lead-lined panic room for emergencies. It’s his last and only hope.

As Felicity is still sprawled on the floor, disorientated from his punch, Oliver quickly grabs her in a headlock. Hearing her screaming as she flails in her arms causes the agent to tear up, blinking up at the ceiling as he forces the sobs back into his chest.

“I’m sorry, I don’t wanna hurt you,” he chokes. “I’m sorry, Felicity.”

She doesn’t respond, but that’s probably because she can’t. Oliver sits there for ten minutes with his arm encasing the technopath’s throat, attempting to knock her out, but Felicity just refuses to submit without a fight. She bucks beneath him so that Oliver has to lie back and use his legs to hold down her waist, and squirms so much it’s exhausting to keep her within his grasp. The entire time, the agent can’t stop crying. Finally, after what seems to him like hours, the blonde quietens and falls into unconsciousness.

It’s a rush to get her down into the panic room, arranging her on the small cot inside and removing any items she could possibly use as weapons with her powers, or even make a weapon manually. Oliver’s hands shake as he locks the giant door, sliding three deadbolts shut. These deadbolts can’t be opened from the inside of the bunker which he reckons is a good thing, as they are probably what is going to save his life in this instance.

Once the last deadbolt is secured, Oliver lurches over to the nearest trash can and promptly throws up. It takes a while for the nausea to wane, but after it does, the agent staggers over to the stairs, collapsing down onto them in exhaustion. The adrenalin is wearing off, leaving his entire body aching and in pain. His belly is tender, hurting a lot because of Felicity’s knee being jammed into it; he hopes any damage she’s caused there is just bruising, not internal. Head still spinning from being choked, he stumbles up the stairs and to the nearest bedroom, not even caring to pull his clothes off before he slumps onto the bed.

_Oliver, I love you._

“I love you too, Felicity,” he mumbles, before darkness obscures his vision and drags him down into the murky depths of sleep.

* * *

When Oliver wakes up, his immediate thought is that he feels like he’s been struck with a sledgehammer over his head and hit by a train. He can hardly move, he hurts so much. His head pounds like somebody is striking it repeatedly with a blunt object, everything is blurry as hell and he explodes into a severe coughing fit, his badly bruised throat and neck making it agonizing just to breathe.

He practically flops off the bed onto the floor. Felicity seriously did a number on him last night. He’s never been more aware of how she was obviously taking it easy on him and his team during their fights at the compounds. For somebody who appears so innocent and hates confrontations, the technopath is certainly a formidable opponent. Oliver knows for sure that if he didn’t lock her away in the panic room, she would have killed him. His stomach twists. Just like she killed Tommy. But with Tommy, Felicity had killed him swiftly and painlessly, and had no other choice. Last night, under the influence of that drug, Felicity seemed to revel in making him suffer as she slowly choked him out.

But the reason why she was so eager to kill him was because the drug made her want to kill everybody she loves, and _she loves him._

Physically, he feels like utter shit, but emotionally, he feels like it’s the dawn of a new day.

Oliver drags himself to his feet, taking a moment to steady himself and wait for the dizziness to subside. He has to go and check on Felicity. He feels awful about the fact he had to cage her again, just like his fellow CIA agents did (although is that ex-fellow CIA agents? He’s probably been fired. Most likely placed on the Most Wanted list right under Felicity. Who gives a fuck about that though?), he hopes she can understand that he only did it because he wouldn’t have stood a chance against her. Pausing in the kitchen so can down a few painkiller tablets from the first aid kit which are thankfully still in date, he grabs another packet and a bottle of water. It wouldn’t surprise him if Felicity has a killer headache as well.

His hands refuse to coordinate with his brain, so takes about five minutes to unlock all the deadbolts. There’s a boulder sitting in his chest over his heart as he heaves open the door, warily sticking his head inside.

Felicity is lying face-down on the cot and god, she’s crying her eyes out. She doesn’t appear to notice the door being open and Oliver standing in the entrance way until he clears his throat hoarsely.

She turns around so fast that the cot bed actually threatens to break beneath her. Her eyes are red-rimmed, filled with a frantic, primal fear as she gazes at him. One second, she’s gasping and staring at him, her expression a combination of disbelief, shock, and relief, and the next, she’s flinging herself at him with a sob, hugging him and pressing kisses all over his face.

“Hey, it’s okay, I’m okay,” he comforts her softly, cupping her jaw to get her to focus on him before embracing her back. 

“I thought I killed you,” she cries. “I woke up and all I could remember was choking you. I thought you were dead!”

“I’m alive,” he whispers. When she shakes her head, tears clouding her vision as they continue to fall, the agent catches her hand and pulls it down so it rests over his heart, so she can feel it beating through his t-shirt. “See? It’s alright.”

“I thought I was back in that cell,” she whispers shakily. “I - I thought -”

“Felicity,” he cuts her off gently. “Everything is alright. You are safe here with me.”

She surges up onto her tiptoes and kisses him, throwing an arm around his shoulder to anchor herself to him. It’s passionate and heated and desperate, as if Felicity needs to do more than just touch him to reassure herself that he’s here and okay. Breaking away from him, the technopath rests her forehead against his, finally calming. Her breathing evens out and her grip becomes a little less tight, allowing Oliver to move them both so they’re sitting on the cot instead of standing.

“I love you,” she murmurs. She buries her face into the crook of his shoulder and shudders, tangling their fingers together. “I’m sorry I was so scared to tell you before. I never thought it was possible for a human to love somebody like me, it just seemed too good to be true and I couldn’t stand the idea of hurting you. I’m so sorry I told you our night together was meaningless because it _wasn’t_. And I’m so sorry about Tommy.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” he replies softly, caressing her back soothingly. “If anybody should be apologizing it should be me. I’m so sorry I called you a monster, because you’re not. And I’m so sorry I couldn’t help you more when you got caught. I should have been there for you from the very start and I shouldn’t have waited so long to rescue you.”

“I don’t care how long it took you to get me out of there. You did and that’s all that matters.”

“Felicity…” Oliver strokes his thumb down her cheek. “I love you _so much_ , Deviant powers and all. Because they don’t make you less of a person, Felicity. Your powers are part of who you are, and that’s who I’m in love with. I promise you, from now on I will protect you with my life. The CIA will _never_ hurt you again. And I promise you… we will rescue all the Deviant children they’re experimenting on in those facilities.”

She shoots him a miserable look. “That horrible agent who caught me took my phone. I have no way of getting in contact with Lyla, Diggle and the others. They’ve probably all gone underground.”

“Well, where were you and Lyla teleporting all the kids you rescued to?”

Wiping away her tears, she answers, “We were all building this massive secret house… off the shore of Wollaston Lake, in Canada. Last time I was there was about a month ago… they had two buildings completed, with twelve bedrooms in each of them for the children. I found a way to funnel money from illegal Cayman Island accounts of mobs and corrupt organizations so we could fund creating a little complex with a school, so we could raise the kids there. They’re all kids from off the streets or from the system so they don’t have people to go back to… they need guidance from adult Deviants so they can learn to control their powers. I guess the team might be up there.”

“Then we go to Canada,” Oliver tells her firmly. “We go to Wollaston Lake and see if they’re there. If not, we keep searching. We’ll find your friends, Felicity.”

“ _Our_ friends,” she corrects softly. A small smile on her lips, she adds, “Dig and Lyla like you. Alena _loves_ you. Roy… basically tolerates you. And Dinah… Dinah’s agreed not to set you on fire, which is about as much approval as you’re gonna get from her.”

He laughs. “I think I can live with that.”

“Should I start organizing off-the-radar transport for us both up there then?” Oliver can already see by the flickering of Felicity’s eyes that she’s searching the internet in her mind using her powers. “There’s a train we can catch tomorrow that only takes two days to get up to the border.”

Oliver’s heart drops. “Um, actually,” he glances down at his hands, swallowing, “I was hoping to stick around for another couple of days. Tommy’s funeral is on Monday. They pushed it back because they had to inform his father, who’s working undercover in North Korea. I know it sounds stupid considering we’re both kind of on-the-run now, and it would be dangerous since I could get spotted, but… I wanted to go.”

Regret and guilt glimmer in Felicity’s eyes, like they always do when Tommy comes up. She grips his hands and says softly, “Of course. I actually think I might be able to help with the whole danger, getting spotted thing.”

“You want to come?”

She looks agitated. “Is that okay? I… know I killed him… but I want to go to support you, to help you celebrate your friend’s life.”

“Felicity… it’s fine. If Tommy had got to know you, if he knew why you were doing what you were doing, I bet he really would have liked you.”

* * *

The day of Tommy’s funeral is a dark one. The skies are cloudy and grey and in the morning, it rains. It clears a little by the time the service begins, but it’s still dismal. Tommy gets a full service with honors due to his service to the CIA and the United States government. Even the President attends. There are huge American flags hanging everywhere and soldiers in uniform. The only family member attending is Tommy’s father.

Oliver knows that Tommy would hate this. Hundreds of people have come to his funeral, but only about fifteen of them knew Tommy personally. It’s so formal and proper, so serious and silent. The agent knows that Tommy would have wanted people to celebrate his life, not mull over his death and spend days upon days mourning him.

He stands at the back of the park under an oak tree, just close enough to hear the eulogies being spoken on a microphone, but far away enough that he can’t see his friend’s coffin. The agent knows there’s an empty seat in the front row, a little name card with _Oliver Queen_ written on it attached. As much as he wants to go and sit in it, he can’t. He’s a wanted criminal now, a listed terrorist. He’s number two on the CIA’s Most Wanted list. Felicity remains number one.

Felicity is the only reason he’s able to attend the funeral. Part of her powers is electrical field manipulation, and he had absolutely no idea it was possible, but apparently, there’s some way to alter the electric field around a human being so that they actually become invisible. She does this for both of them and stands at Oliver’s side throughout the entire service, offering him tissues when he cries and turning away when she does, as if she thinks she’s wrong to be crying at the funeral of the man she killed in self-defense.

It’s honestly a beautiful service. Oliver is glad he attends. Bitterness sweeps over him, however, when he realizes that Adrian is the one giving the main eulogy. Adrian never really liked Tommy that much, just tolerated him because they worked together. Oliver should be the one up there talking about Tommy’s life and successes, not Adrian. He utilizes his current invisibility to break away from Felicity angrily when he realizes that Adrian is leaving the service halfway through, just after he finishes his speech, and punches him in the face. _That’s for Tommy, and that’s for Felicity._ The man scrambles back, panicked since he can’t see his attacker, before running off like the true coward he is. Watching Adrian leave with a scowl on his face, Oliver returns to the oak tree, slips his hand back into Felicity’s and listens to the rest of the service.

Once it’s over and the crowds have dispersed, he approaches Tommy’s grave with the large, polished black granite headstone, grasping onto Felicity’s hand like it’s a lifeline as he reads the inscription.

_In loving memory_  
_THOMAS MERLYN_  
_1985-2018_  
_Beloved son and friend_  
_A true American hero_  
_Whose light was dimmed far too soon_

He cries again, but silently.

Felicity kneels down in front of the grave and gently lays a bouquet of pink and white flowers. They’re particularly bright and different compared to the roses and daffodils most people have left.

“They’re nice flowers,” he says quietly.

“I chose them because of what they mean,” Felicity replies, arranging the bouquet amongst the others before standing and joining him, leaning into his side.

He nods, swallowing as he asks, “What do they mean?”

“The pink ones are Gladioluses. They symbolize remembrance. The white ones are white Lilacs.”

“What do they symbolize?” he prompts, when Felicity pauses.

She rubs at her eyes, sniffing. “An apology,” she finally replies, her voice thick.

* * *

They catch the train to the Canadian border. After several hard, exhausting days of switching between catching cabs, using public transport, stealing bicycles to use and hiking, they finally reach Wollaston Lake.

It’s stunningly beautiful, the shimmering lake surrounded by lush, thick pine forest. Felicity bounces with excitement as she leads Oliver by the hand up a trail, through the woods and towards the shore, where he can see a small, rocky beach in the distance.

Two enormous houses emerge from the shadows as they step into a clearing, where a group of kids are playing softball and a dog runs around, barking happily as plays with them. Diggle is supervising the children with a toddler sitting atop his shoulders and Lyla stands beside him, bending down ever so slightly to explain to a little girl how the game works. Roy suddenly appears from the thicket and tries to contain the dog. Dinah appears and tries to contain Roy. Alena smirks at them both from where she’s lounging in a chair with a tablet in hand.

Diggle sees Oliver and Felicity first, and his eyes just _light up_. He gently places the child on his shoulders onto the ground, asking him to hold Lyla’s hand and then he runs towards them. Felicity laughs and sprints to meet him, letting him scoop her up into a massive hug.

“Felicity!” He swings her around wildly. She laughs harder. Oliver grins at how happy she looks.

“Hi, Dig.”

“I thought we lost you!” Alena shouts, also hurrying over, quickly followed by Dinah and Roy, who shove Dig aside for their own hugs.

“It’s okay,” Felicity tells her.

She glances over at Oliver with a soft, loving smile.

“I was found.”

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!!! i hope you enjoyed it :)


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